Tim Witherspoon's close decisions

The earlier rulings against Page and Tubbs were a lot less competitive than they were shown as on the cards, but the later matches' scores against both Williams (No relation) are fair. Witherspoon was on a harsh slump during the comeback trail that followed him losing to Smith, and you can see a decent bit of split and majority wins in place of what would be prior unanimous ones.

 

Snipes was a very close fight.

 

I thought Witherspoon beat Page and Tubbs quite clearly and didn't understand the MD in both fights to be quite frank.

Both Tubbs and Page came in overweight in and fought cautious and defensive whilst Witherspoon was the clear aggressor and landed more punches.

As for the other two fights I haven't seen them but @scartissue has a scorecard for the Mike Williams fight.

PS you can also add Witherspoon's decision over Snipes that was controversial and I thought Witherspoon lost that one.

 

I just watched the fight for the first time and I was surprised by scoring Snipes as the winner 97-93.

Looking back at Snipes' career, he has two more losses after this fight against Evangelista and Parkey, both of which he lost in split decisions. According to Boxrec, Snipes won both of them. Therefore, three of his first five losses were at least dubious from what I see. He also deserved to win in the draw against Scott Frank... All this fights were in his prime,I must also say that he received a gift in the fight against Coetzee that he clearly lost before the title fight against Holmes.
I think he was unlucky or Dong King after the fight against Holmes let his hands go

 

There were some disputes about him getting the nod over snipes but don’t seem to remember hearing anything about those other ones

 

I've never scored it but there was plenty of support for Snipes. The noise was average as it wasn't that big of a fight, tho it was vitally important to both combatants. Snipes was about # and Timmy #9 from memory.

 

I saw the fight with Mike Williams like ten years ago and I remember Tim winning it well, something like 7-3 in rounds.

 

I think SD and especially MD is emphasising the minority judge. And its better to look to either the majority decision or neutral decision if there is none. The Page fight was 9-3 on 2 cards. The Mike Williams judge scored the fight 4-5 rounds different.

Witherspoon was a prospect when he fought Snipes who at his peak. Its also more difficult to get a clean outcome in 10 rounders. The shorter the fight the higher the chance of an upset.

 

Tim Witherspoon's closest decision in his whole life was the decision not to fight Mike Tyson.

 

I think it is worth noting the Homes fight, that some at the time thought he won, and the Mercer fight, which most though he won.

 

You should never forget the fighters he fought here were all very talented boxers who would be champions in this era.

 

I don't think there was a time for them to fight to be fair.

 

@dmt I can add to this thread in regards to the Mike Williams fight which i watched awhile ago.


Tim Witherspoon vs Mike Williams

1 Witherspoon
2 Williams
3 Williams
4 Even
5 Williams
6 Witherspoon
7 Witherspoon
8 Witherspoon
9 Witherspoon
10 Witherspoon

97-94 Witherspoon


@scartissue i decided to watch this after seeing your write up i scored it a bit differently to you but both of our scorecards were in line with two of the judges.

A decent Heavyweight fight Witherspoon on the comeback trail after his bad defeat to Bonecrusher, Witherspoon was in good shape for this one but Williams who was known as Union Cane in Rocky 5 did give Witherspoon a competitive fight.

Witherspoon started off well in the 1st round rocking Williams with a big over hand right and almost knocking him down, possibly this could've been scored a 10-8 round the commentator thought so but i just scored it 10-9.

After the big 1st round though Williams did give Witherspoon problems boxing on outside using good movement and out jabbing and outworking Witherspoon and i thought Williams had a good spell between rounds 2-5.

With Williams having a slight lead on my card after the first 5 rounds i thought Witherspoon turned it around in the 2nd half of the fight and swept all the remaining rounds on my card by landing the more harder effective punches that visibly stunned/wobbled Williams. And despite Williams remaining competitive his movement slowed down and he got more involved into exchanging punches rather than boxing on the outside which he had success with earlier. And for me personally i score the more effective harder punches and it was quite apparent to me Witherspoon landed all the eye catching punches that visibly hurt his man in the 2nd half of the fight.

Before i finish this write up i have to mention the judges scorecards two of them had Witherspoon winning with pretty reasonable scores of 97-94 which is what i had it and 96-94. But the other judge had it 98-92 in favour of Williams ? that's probably one of the worst scorecards i've ever seen what fight was he watching ? Not even Williams's own mother could come up with such a ridiculous scorecard.

 

Also here's my card for the Mercer fight aswell @dmt


Tim Witherspoon vs Ray Mercer

1 Witherspoon
2 Witherspoon
3 Witherspoon
4 Mercer
5 Witherspoon
6 Mercer
7 Mercer
8 Mercer
9 Witherspoon
10 Mercer

95-95 Draw

I decided to watch this again i've heard people consider this a bad decision but i don't think so. It was a very close fight that could've gone either way IMO. Witherspoon started off better winning the battle on the inside with his body punching and eye catching over hand rights. But then Mercer adjusted in the 2nd half of the fight and i thought he did well boxing and out jabbing Witherspoon who's output dropped in the later rounds. Witherspoon did land more eye catching power punches overall but Mercer's jab was also very effective a fight of two halves for me.

Overall a pretty entertaining fight and a very competitive fight with some stand out rounds when they slugged it out. This sure was a good card for Heavyweight action as this was on the undercard of Bowe vs Golota 2 which was a war.